“You had like eight, nine guys in the box,” Fournette said last week at SEC media days in Hoover. “I did what I could do.”

More than any other team in the SEC, LSU matches Alabama in talent, and in Fournette, will be the best player on the field come Nov. 5 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He must play like it in order for LSU to end its five-game skid against Alabama, but Fournette needs help from more than just his head coach.

Quarterback Brandon Harris must deliver. Plain and simple. Fournette is confident Harris will in 2016.

“I’m ready to see the new Brandon Harris when Sept. 3 comes,” said Fournette as LSU opens the season against Wisconsin at Lambeau Field in Green Bay. “He has a new swag to himself. He’s talking like I think a quarterback should talk. He’s taken over at practice.”

Harris needs to walk like a quarterback walks for LSU to seriously contend for national title.

“I think he knows the defenses now,” Fournette later said. “He can tell you what the secondary is in like Cover 2, Cover 3. He might switch the routes for the wide receivers. That’s something he wasn’t good at, but I think he’s perfect at it now.”

Harris has ability, but he’s not Deshaun Watson, Chad Kelly or Joshua Dobbs. He’s shown great flashes, but Harris must complement Fournette to force defenses to fear him making them pay.

That will loosen up that stacked box Fournette will face all season. The difference between Alabama and everyone else is its front seven is better than anyone else in stuffing the run.

Fournette can’t overcome that alone. He needs Harris to force Nick Saban’s hand and make him move say Ronnie Harrison out of that box to stop Fournette. Part of that will fall on Cam Cameron’s play calling, but in the end, Harris needs to pull his weight in order for LSU to make the College Football Playoff.

“He’s more ambitious,” Miles said last week. “The more you accomplish, the more you want to accomplish. The artistic piece of being a quarterback is the style of throw, and the style of throw is where he’s at. How do I drive it? Do I put air on it? What is this throw? And that’s where you want a quarterback to spend his time, and he is.”

Still, for LSU to get there, Fournette must display what Henry did — to keep going even when the going gets tougher and tougher. Henry just kept coming. Got stronger as the season went on. While defenses loaded up on Fournette, it just seemed as if he geared it down a level during LSU’s three-game skid.

Maybe it was frustration. Maybe it was fatigue from carrying the offense. Whatever it was, he lacked that charge during LSU’s loss at Alabama and subsequent defeats to Arkansas and at Ole Miss.

“Everybody’s heads weren’t in the right place,” Fournette said about the Alabama loss. “… We forgot our ‘why.’ Why we work so hard to get there.”

Hard to be critical of someone who rushed for 1,953 yards and 22 touchdowns last season, but Fournette can’t tail off again if the Tigers stumble against the Tide again.

Henry took his game to another level after Alabama lost to Ole Miss. Jake Coker came into his own as a quarterback, but Henry was the driving force of the offense. Fournette has to find the desire to keep grinding regardless of where LSU is in terms of contending for a conference title and playoff bid.

Fournette may find that more difficult to do that if his mind is on the NFL.

At SEC media days, he joked about enjoying college because “everything’s free” like food.

“I’m not ready for that world (NFL) right now,” Fournette said.

Fournette drew laughs from the media, but he’s coming along at the right time. Todd Gurley put the punch back in the early potential of the position by rushing for 1,106 yards and 10 touchdowns as a rookie last season.

Then Dallas used the fourth overall pick in this year’s draft to take Ohio State’s Ezekiel Elliott. So Fournette, a junior, could very well be the top pick in 2017 if he elects to come out early.

My bad. Fournette could go first overall when he leaves LSU after this year.

Fournette said he never considered sitting out this year to avoid getting hurt, saying “that kind of was a rumor that came out of nowhere,” but that idea is not out of the realm of possibility.

Jadeveon Clowney was in this same boat entering his third year at South Carolina. He didn’t play great, and critics said he dialed it down to avoid an injury, but Clowney wound up being the top pick in 2014.

Henry went all out. He didn’t go until the second round, but left Alabama after his junior year with a Heisman Trophy and national championship.

The more talented and gifted Fournette can do the same – and be the top pick – but needs help and play with the great will and determination to duplicate what Henry achieved.